VALENCE:

Chief town of the department of the Drome and former capital of the county of Valentinois in the ancient province of Dauphiné, France. Several Jewish families that had been expelled from the Comtat-Venaissin in 1323 sought refuge in Valence and its territories. Guillaume de Roussillon, Bishop of Valence, also brought a number into his diocese in 1330, and granted them important privileges. In 1441 there were eighteen Jewish families in Valence, each of which paid to the bishop, John of Poitiers, an annual pension of one gold florin ("R. E. J." ix. 238). The same prelate compelled them to wear the badge of the wheel (Jules Ollivier, "Dissertation Historique sur la Ville de Valence," p. 301).

The dauphin Louis showed much good-will toward the Jews of Valence and its territories. He confirmed the privileges which his predecessors had granted them, and invited all the Jews who wished to do so to settle within his dominions, promising them immunities and protection similar to those enjoyed by their coreligionists in other localities of Dauphiné, on condition that they paid the same dues. An anonymous writer of Valentinois in the fifteenth century composed a commentary on the astronomical tables of Immanuel Jacob Bonfils.